Today, Facebook has become a part of our everyday lives in one way or another, whether we want to admit it or not. U.S. users spend 41 minutes on Facebook daily, and every minute another 400 users sign up. With this growing use of social media advertising, it is imperative to maximize every dollar spent. This uptick has caused many businesses to shift their advertising strategies towards a social media platform focused on increasing the performance of their content. Below are a few tips to help you get a leg up against your competitors while simultaneously elevating the success of your business:
1. Determine who you want to target
The first thing to consider is your target audience. What type of people are you trying to reach specifically?
Facebook provides many options when considering who you want to see your ads. You can choose to focus on demographics (i.e. age, gender, location, income, homeownership status etc.), and/or behavior (likeliness to move, page likes, purchase behavior, job role, digital activities, etc). With so many options to choose from you have the ability to target the exact audience you want to reach.
A common mistake many people often make is focusing on the creative of their ads before doing research on who they will target. In reality, it should actually be done in the opposite order. It is essential to do your research first and fully understand who it is exactly that you are trying to reach. By putting these customer segments into “buckets”, you can understand how to best address each segment individually and best appeal to their interests. As simple as this may seem targeting is something that takes time to master, but once achieved it can lead to tremendous success.
2. Test out different types of ad campaigns
It’s vital that you choose the right type of ad to best promote your brand. Choosing the right type of campaign will successfully drive your users to your desired action as well as optimize your ad to perform well. Below are all the different types of campaigns available on Facebook and an explanation of what each is best for.
a. Awareness: These ads are focused on developing customer’s awareness for your brand and reaching new potential customers. These focus on reaching people who will have interest in your ads and that will spend time engaging with them allowing you to boost your brand lift.
b. Consideration: These ads are for the next stage of the customer buying cycle, those who are already aware of your product but do not have high enough interest. These can be great for driving traffic to your website, increasing engagement, generating leads as well as gaining video views.
c. Conversion: These ads are meant to be the last step for your customers, at this point you are trying to get them to finish the final stage and buy your product. These can be great for converting customers to make a specific action, having an ongoing product catalog and increasing store visits by reaching people that are only a certain distance away from your business.
3. Have a long term strategy
Before launching your advertisements you should consider what your long term strategy is going to be. What are you looking to get out of it and how are you going to make that happen? A few things to consider are:
A. Setting goals that directly impact your biggest needs.
a. Are you looking to increase sales, create brand awareness, expand your network, etc.
B. Creating a process for engaging with your audience.
a. What type of content will you post to build an engaging community?
C. Develop a cadence and budget for your ads and daily content.
a. Will your ad campaigns run for days, weeks, or months? How often will you post content? The rule we follow is that you generally want to swap ads once your “clicks to website” falls to around 25%.
4. Monitor performance & adjust in real time
It’s important to know what metrics you are going to track and which you are looking to improve. Facebook Insights allow you to find answers through data and research where you can learn more about specific audiences as well as overall ad performance. Some metrics to monitor are:
- CTR (Click Through Rate) – Total clicks an ad receives divided by total times your ad is shown
- CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions) – The cost of 1,000 advertisement impressions on a single web page
- CPC (Cost Per Click) – The price you pay for every click on an ad or boosted post.
- Impressions – The number of times a post from your page is displayed, whether the post is clicked on or not. You can receive multiple impressions from the same person
- Reach – The number of people or households you reach with your ad
5. Use eye-catching pictures and videos to increase engagement
Today, Facebook gets over 8 billion average daily video views, and according to Techcrunch, images & videos account for 75-90% of FB advertising performance. Which shows how valuable multimedia can be for advertisements. Just to give you an idea of how useful they can be, listings using a video received 403% more inquiries than without.
6. Be transparent with your ad copy to gain trust of customer or tell a story
Sales is all about creating an enjoyable and memorable relationship with your audience. This starts with building trust with your potential clients. The last thing you want is for them to feel deceived, so it is always best to tell them exactly what they are getting. Be sure to include as much information as possible, including:
- Price
- Square footage
- Location
- Number of rooms
- Neighborhood Info.
Conclusion:
Whether you are looking to increase brand awareness, promote a new service, or increase sales, these tips will help take your Facebook advertising to the next level. As the most effective platform for social media advertising available today, if you make sure to develop a solid plan, write creative copy, and use attention grabbing pictures and videos, you will be on the road to success.